Melancholy as an Intellectual Weapon: Dimensions of the Problematic of Melancholy from Panajotis Kondylis’ Point of View

Abstract

The article deals with the question of how Panajotis Kondylis defines melancholy as an intellectual weapon. In doing so, it profiles how the polemical sides of melancholy, the pessimistic attitude of the melancholic, is related to people’s pursuit of power. In order to contour as precisely as possible the polemical dimensions of diverse types of melancholy that Kondylis cites and unfolds using examples from intellectual history, he employs a multidimensional ‘interdisciplinary’ approach. For Kondylis, the multidimensionality of the relationship between melancholy and polemic is rooted in what he describes as structural analogies between individual psychological-anthropological and cultural-critical-socio-political levels of melancholy. The essential characteristic of melancholy in this context is its intentionality. It is intentional per se, because it is always directed against something that lies outside of itself. From this in turn derives its polemical character.